best DDR Tbird board

NIB64Jul 23, 2001, 7:20 PM

Hello, I'm looking to buy a DDR-based 1.4ghz Tbird in the fall. I can't decide whether to go with the Sis 735 chipset or AMD 761 chipset. I hear that Sis is faster but i haven't been able to find it on pricewatch.com. Also, which motherboard would you recommend for each chipset?Any help is appreciated.

P.S.- is there any difference between the AMD 760 and 761 chipsets or are they the same thing?

The SiS 735 isn't out yet. Look for it in the fall. The nForce will probably be better though, so be careful. The AMD 760/761 is the fastest chipset currently out for DDR. I'd recommend the Abit KG7-RAID (AMD 761).

The difference between 760 and 761 is that the 760 has an AMD Northbridge AND Southbridge. The 761 has an AMD Northbridge, but a Via 686b Southbridge. Both will offer the same performance, the 761 will have more compatability problems. But you get some with any chipset, and a lot of them are overcomeable.

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To the best of my knowledge, there are no 'pure' AMD760 chipset motherboards available. All such DDR boards have the AMD761 Northbridge and a Via Southbridge. And from what I have read by way of reviews, I would say that the Gigabyte GA7DXR is the best of that breed.

I'm not totally sure, but isn't the Tyan MP board 760? I don't remember for sure.

The Asus A7M266 is a very nice board. I just like Abit a little better than Asus. Those two companies are the only ones I'd buy a motherboard from. Not that there aren't other very good boards out there, but I want the absolute best. Either the KG7 or the A7M will do you quite well.

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The Abit KG7-Raid has basically the same stability and performance as the Asus A7M266, but the abit board comes with an onboard Raid controller and you can overclock you processors via multiplier (if your athlon is unlocked) in the bios, which you cannot do in the Asus. The Abit board is the best tweaker/overclocker board using the AMD 761 chipset and has that nice feature called RAID that is why it is better than the Asus board. Again, it is all user preference...I myself have never built a computer without an Asus board for my own personal use (besides when Asus did not exist), but that may change when this board is released.

ABit KG7 when it's out... i got a reply from www.atacom.com that it MAY be available next week. But thats the board i'm getting because i love abit's boards... it's meant for tweakers so there is no integrated crap.

Also if you can wait, wait! Nvidia's nForce will rock intels world with it's chipset and make the AMD shine the way it was meant to!

IntelConvert is correct, there are NO (pure AMD) 760 chipset boards. The Tyan Thunder uses the AMD760<b>MP</b>, which is an all AMD chipset intended for 'MP boards' such as the Tyan K7. But to buy an MP board for single processor use would a huge waste of money!!!

NIB64: Since you are looking to buy this Fall, by then the SiS735 and nForce DDR boards will be out for sure. While they each have their pros and cons when compared to each other, both chipsets will outperform anything around today!

Yeah, and a lot of other people are confused about that. AMD's original 760 chipset consisted of their 761 Northbridge and their 762 Southbridge. If I recall correctly, the 762 did not support ATA100. Sometime afterwards, AMD substituted the 766 Southbridge for the 762, but by that time the VIA686B had already been implemented as the AMD760 Southbridge by mobo mfrs. When the AMD766 later became available the mobo mfrs rejected the much higher cost of the 766 over the 686B.